Page 83 of Meet Cute Reboot
The trip to the Charleston Historical Foundation yields some positive results. I return home with several photocopies of old newspaper articles, five pages of notes, and a new appreciation for the neighborhood I decided to call home.
It’s too late to get any more work done—so I tell myself—which means I have the rest of the night to fashion the bits and pieces of history I collected into a cohesive speech, something Cassie’s tour guide might recite to start the tour.
Sometime around ten o’clock, Mom raps on my office door. She needs to borrow dish soap. I tell her it will cost her a dollar, and she scoffs at me. She waves her hand in front of her nose and tells me Korg stinks before closing the door and leaving me in peace.
At midnight, I take my last drink of La Croix and nudge a sleeping Korg with my toe. Korg lifts his head groggily, blinks fresh tears into his eyes, and stands.
I let Korg out to do his business, and then we both head to my bedroom. I expect a relaxing night of sleep, but I wake up three hours later in a full sweat to the sound of disembodied moans. He/she/it has been quiet for several days. That or I’ve been sleeping through the otherworldly noises.
Korg whines and tries to climb on top of me. His paws stab my gut like five-inch heels on a six-foot model.
“Korg. No. You’re going to send me to the ER.”
I sit up and offer him reassuring pets while the creepy moaning continues. I thought dogs were supposed to look after humans, not the other way around.
“At least the demon cat didn’t decide to break through the gates of hell tonight too,” I say to the top of Korg’s head.
And just like that, I jinx myself. I hear a sharp utterance of the feline variety, the tone both mournful and territorial, low at the start, rounding off at the top, and back down.
I refuse to throw on a pair of flannel pajama pants just to wander around the perimeter of my house waving a flashlight. Been there, done that.
“Let’s go upstairs,” I say to my dog, hopeful that I won’t be able to hear the underworld from the guest room in the far corner of the house. I’m right and the two of us soon fall back to sleep.
The next morning, I’m determined to get to the bottom of Moany Marony. I pull the business card off my bulletin board in the pantry—the one belonging to the guy who sold me this house. The number on the card goes to his secretary. When she asks if the matter is urgent, I tell her yes, I have a haunting and I need to know if the ghost is friendly or out to steal my soul. She sounds adequately concerned, so I tell her my story and my relation to her boss.
“I’m not sure I should do this,” she whispers into the phone, “but I don’t think he’ll mind.”
“I don’t want you to get fired,” I say.
“Oh,” she laughs. “If I get fired it won’t be for giving you his wife’s number.”
I don’t ask her what she’d have to do to get the ax, even though I am a little curious. I just take down his wife’s number and promptly call her after I hang up with the secretary.
“This is Janice,” a voice says on the other end of the line.
“Hi, Janice. This is Luke. Luke Curtis. I bought your home on Benton Street.”
“Yes! Luke.” The higher timbre of her voice denotes recognition. “I remember you from the closing. Are you enjoying the house?”
I fold my arms and lean back in my office chair. “Yeah, yeah. Mostly.”
“Oh no.”
I clear my throat. “There is one little thing—”
“Betsy.”
“I’m sorry, who?”
“Betsy’s stirring up mischief, isn’t she?”
“Um.”
“Let me guess. You hear noises at night. Your cabinet door opens by itself.”
I cover my eyes with my free hand. “You knew your house was haunted and you sold it to me anyway?”
“It’s an old house. It goes with the territory.”